Exceptions can be made.

Tonight on completion of his swimming lesson�da boy was wicked-tired. [Hello, Boston Area Readers! Wicked was just used in a sentence. Enjoy. It might be the last time unless I am talking about Dr. Laura�and then I�d be adding another pile of less-kind adjectives.]

So. On completion of PeeJays, I was making dinner and decided to deed him some BoobToob. Normally we would have turned on PBSKids in this situation. But alas it featured Barney and I couldn�t imagine having to listen to such�and more, I assume that he would have been looking askance at my ignorance. The result? I went for Gilligan�s Island on TeeVeeLlamaLand.

Now the show was its normal felching-festival-O-fun. [Sorry.] It was the near-classic Skipper-has-to-lose-weight-while-Gilligan-eats-so- they-can- join-the-Navy-when-they-get-off-the-Island episode.

But, that is not the topic this evening. [Stop the boo-hooing. It�ll be OK.]

Our subject is a single commercial.

DaSauce is such a human as always uses the marvy Mute Button Of Joy during interstitial-icks.

But tonight one captured my attention anyway�sound off and all. It was for a product called Pasta Pro.

This amazingly useless product sells for the low, low, low-blow price of $19.95 (plus $10.00 shipping and handling?!?) It is (get this) a red-painted aluminum pot with a lid that has holes on one side of it.

The Gimmick?

This Carny Act in the cookery pitching biz�had a spiel where they showed �Mom� using a pot lid to drain some noodles. O�s of shock ensue around her table full of family as she dumps half the pasta down the sink while burning herself on the steam. No one leaps up to help. They all just look disgusted and point at the READY foods (sauce, et al) on the table�hunger taking the place where we formerly saw abhorrence of her intense stupidity as they fade back to the Mom. We see her trying to catch the sliding pasta with a spoon as it slips out of sight down the InSinkErHater.

The Windup.

Poof. It is Pasta Pro to the rescue. Next we see her sans-sweat and smile to the front as she dumps water out of a red pot with holes covering half the lid. The text that follows is sheer magic. �Not just for Pasta! Also works with HEAVY potatoes!�

The Grind.

Not only do you get one Pasta Pro unit (the six-quart version,) but if you act now you can also be the lucky recipient of a second two-quart pot with Holy Lid (ABSOLUTELY FREE,) and a special gift (a forty-nine penny cheese grater.)

Maybe your Calphalon owning�Primo Doner DaSauce is the rube here?

But what human with a third of their original deck of 42 cards would actually buy this?

I mean you can go to TAR-Jay, or WallyMarty and spend less on a nine-piece set and get a 50-cent frigging rubber colander on the side.

It is bad enough that some poor bastard in a Chinese reeducation camp is suffering his ass off while making it before they harvest his parts. It is even worse that I can�t see yer average "everything in my double-wide is AS-SEEN ON TV" human actually falling for the grift.

What�s next? The XXL-sized Butt Plug Pro, NOW WITH high grit pumice?

--SkepticalSemolinaSauce